Grubbs n Critters

June 15, 2013

Eavesdropping Spud

The comments in Spud’s daily journal written by her Homeroom teacher the other day left me scratching my head. The last sentence left me a little confused, and I thought I should speak to her teacher to understand what had really happened when I dropped her off the next day. I did not see any cuts or bruises on Spud when I tucked her in bed that evening.

I think her Homeroom teacher had the same plan, for when I got to the school, her teacher was ready to explain to me what had happened. She explained that Spud was sitting all by herself in the classroom while waiting for the school bus. All of a sudden, she fell off the bench (or chair) that she was sitting on and hit head on the corner of a cupboard nearby. Being the clutz that Spud usually is, I am not surprised and I told the teacher so. And this is where it got interesting.

The story told by her teacher went like this:

Right after she fell off and hit herself, Spud had apparently gotten very upset. She cried quite hard, and as her teacher attended to her, Spud was wailing her guts out with a, “I fell down like Humpty Dumpteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Oh boy. How I guffawed! Spud who was standing next to me while her Homeroom teacher was relating the story started laughing as well. With a big, cheeky grin on her face, she then promptly repeated that she “had fallen like Humpty Dumpty yesterday”. Still laughing away, I then teased her if she could be put back together again; to which she promptly replied with a yes.

Laughing as heartily as I was, her teacher then said that they sing the Humpty Dumpty song every day, and Spud always enjoys the singing and dancing session. It then occurred to me that perhaps, just perhaps, Spud must have played the whole Humpty Dumpty song in her head (action and all) as she was sitting idly on the bench while pretending to be Humpty Dumpty.

Of course, that was only my theory, but it is exactly stories like that makes my day. If only I can see what actually goes on in that pretty, toddler head of her!

Mustard chicken

Category: Food

A recipe which Silver Bullet attempted not too long ago from Jamie’s 30 minute meal.

Mustard chicken

2015-07-13 17:14:32

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Ingredients

A few sprigs of fresh rosemary
4x180g chicken breasts
4 teaspoons Coleman’s mustard powder
3 baby leeks
4 cloves garlic
75ml single cream (taken from cream dauphinoise)
1 heaped teaspoon wholegrain mustard

Instructions

Turn the heat under the frying pan up to medium
Pick and finely chop the leaves from the rosemary sprigs and sprinkle them into the pack of the chicken
Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of mustard powder over each chicken breat, then season and drizzle some olive oil over the chicken and into the frying pan
Massage and rub these flavours all over the meat
Press down the chicken to help it to cook. It should take about 18 minutes
Crush 4 unpeeled cloves of garlic in the pan of chicken
Flip the chicken breasts skin side up, then press down again
Stir the leeks
Check the chicken is cooked through, then pour 75ml of cream into the frying pan
Cover the pan with tin foil
Turn the heat off.
Transfer the chicken breasts to a board and slice into pieces
Stir 1 heaped teaspoon of wholegrain mustard into sauce
Spoon the sauce on to a platter and put the sliced chicken on top.
Drizzle some virgin olive oil and serve

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Fearless Spud

Category: Being Parents

It was my turn in the pool for a Sunday make-up swimming class and I remember the moment clearly.

After asking Spud if she wanted to dive in to pick up the toy at the bottom of the pool a shot, while fully expecting her to say “No,”, Spud surprised me by giving me a nod. She then stood with her knees on the edge, confidently raised both hands to the front of her head, made a dive and as I gently gave her a little push downwards, she eased herself to the bottom of the pool, picked up a sunken toy, swam back-up and gave me her biggest smile ever.

She was beyond proud of herself – the sparkle in her eyes and her contagious grins right after she bobbed out of the water convinced me so.

And I was beaming with joy.

I was smiling and laughing and telling her how cool that was and that she has done it! I didn’t have to ask, for as soon as she realised how fun that was for her, she wanted to do it again on her own accord.

And again.

She must have done it no less than 5x continuously. She was fearless.

She loved diving in to fetch the toy at the bottom of the pool so much that she created a small ruckus when her session was up. She really did not want to go (and I wasn’t beaming with joy so much at that!)

Coaxing Spud to give it a go like that has never been easy. In fact, it has taken us months of periodic coaxing to convince her to pick up a toy at the bottom of the pool whenever we take her to her swimming class every weekend.

Her answer has always been a standard “No,”and even if the toys were placed on one of the shallower steps in which she would be required to do a small dunking in, she had, for quite a while, refused to negotiate herself into it; sometimes preferring to pick it up with her feet instead (!).

And then suddenly, just like that, Spud decided that she was going to swim to the bottom of the pool after months of refusing to even bother with it.

I guess this was just a classic case of she’s ready when she’s ready.

The most amazing thing for me really is the fact that she is doing things that I don’t (or can’t) even do and she does it at so much ease. When she had made up her mind, there was no moment of hesitation and whatever doubts she had months ago had probably dissipated because she felt safe and she KNOWS she is safe.

It is an incredible feeling to witness that first hand. And, even though this happened more than a week ago, I still beam with joy just thinking about it.

Me proud.proud.proud.